


Beneath the Stars

by Charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fate & Destiny, What Could Have Been.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-09 14:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: “You can doubt that stars are fire,” he said softly. “You can doubt that the sun circles... you can doubt that truth can lie.” He smiled then, and it filled her sweet as honey. “But you can never doubt that wolves can love, Ashara Dayne.”Feast, fireflame, tourney, trouble, dance, dishonour, death… but what if the lady of the stars and the quiet wolf could have spun their own song?





	1. Harrenhal

Men saw laughing purple eyes when they looked at her, and so they thought her happy. Men saw thick dark hair, curled and braided and banded with clasps of gold and gemstone, and so they thought her heart rich as the amethyst hairpins glittering the same happy violet as her eyes. Men saw a lady of the south: preened, proper, plaited, powdered, perfumed – _perfect_. But men were wrong; they were _always_ wrong.

But not him.

_Him_ with his storm-grey eyes, dour face half-hidden by a close-cropped beard. There was something of the wolf about the way he watched, the way he waited, the way he walked, the way he _wanted_. But he was man, too, she could see that – he did not strike after hunger hot and hard like his wolf-wild brother. Instead, he prowled the edges of the hall, half-slipped in shadows, lopsided light spilling from candleflame to limn those storm-grey eyes dark as smoke.

She saw him – and she _saw_ him: as wolf, as man, as Lord, as lover, as husband, father, brother, son, warrior, Hand, widower… she saw it all – their life together: the first kiss beneath half a thousand stars, a wild fuck between furs and blankets, her belly swelled with his seed, her skin marked by his kisses, a wedding before a heart tree, children with laughing purple eyes and solemn northern frowns. She saw it _all_.

“Ash,” said a soft voice at her ear. “Who is that man you stare at?”

“Eddard Stark,” she said at once, his name honey cherries sunshine raindrops springtime meadowsweets bursting sweetly on her tongue. It surged and exploded like a ripe grape, flowed between her teeth, moistened her lips, spread like fire down her throat. “The quiet wolf who will be mine.”

She danced with three: a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of the griffins. _This will be a song someday_ , she thought it, and she _knew_ it – knew it sure as every set of her footsteps as three men turned her in courtly dance: round and round and aft and up and round again. Three men saw laughing purple eyes as they spun her between their arms, and so they thought her happy. She _was_ happy – but not because of the sweet smile of a white sword, the hot palm of a red snake, the shrill song of the lord of the griffins. _No, not them – **him**_. The quiet wolf watched her, waited for her, wanted her; he prowled ever closer, slipshod in the shadows, those storm-grey eyes flickering wild as the candleflame.

_Ask me_. She willed it, she wished it, she _wanted_ it. Spun against bone-white cuirass, red-soft silks, crimson-ivory feathers, she moved pretty as a doe – but her eyes were on his halfway across the hall. _Ask me, ask me, ask_ -

“Lady Dayne,” said a smoke-dark voice at her ear. “Will you dance with me?”

The _wrong_ wolf: black-bearded, winter-eyed, broad-shouldered as his brother, but wilder, more wolf than man. She took his hand and spun away from bone-white cuirass, red-soft silks, crimson-ivory feathers. _This will be a song someday_ , she thought it, she _knew_ it – knew it sure as the wild wolf’s hands notched on her ribs, turning her, stepping well and true as a hunter after a pretty roe deer. _Let them sing of this eve whatever they will – I will write my **own** song_…

She put her hand to the broad chest of Brandon Stark; looked up at him with her laughing purple eyes, soft full lips in a half-smile that made him blink.

“Tell your brother I would dance with _him_ ,” she said softly.

A spell, a song, a charm: was that her voice? Soft as velvet, silky as skirts, it lifted and lilted from her throat to tarry with the rafters of the high hall as the wild wolf dipped his head and dropped his hands and lured the quiet wolf out from the shadows. Storm-grey eyes, dour face half-hidden by a close-cropped beard, dark hair half-bound and half-loose falling to his wide shoulders. He moved as a wolf from the shadows – but he was a man in the way he bowed his head and took her hand, flushed and fumbling.

“The lady of the stars,” he said quietly.

She heard him – and she _heard_ him now, his name, his heart: not honey cherries sunshine raindrops springtime meadowsweets bursting sweetly on her tongue. _No_. He was chill air come eve, bite of ice come noon, breath as smoke drifting upon the morrow: a blast of winter sweet as spring. North, as she was south. Frost, as she was flame. _And together?_ She heard their song now, spinning sweet and soft as his eyes on hers. _A song of ice and fire_.

“The quiet wolf,” she said gently.

Men saw laughing purple eyes when they looked at her, and so they thought her happy. Men saw thick dark hair, curled and braided and banded with clasps of gold and gemstone, and so they thought her heart rich as the amethyst hairpins glittering the same happy violet of her eyes. Men saw a lady of the south: preened, proper, plaited, powdered, perfumed – _perfect_ …

“Men are wrong,” he murmured. “But I _see_ you.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said quietly. “Your eyes are pretty as your poise, smiling as your lips… but you are not so happy as men think.” Her heart broke apart beneath his eyes like a blood orange; gently, he looked right in. “I hear them tell of you, Ashara Dayne. Their words of a girl soft as the stars of her home, sweet as sunlight, bright as truth.” He smiled then, and it filled her with ash and ache. “Yet stars are fire, the sun circles, and truth can lie… just as these pretty violet eyes hide their own heart.”

“I see you,” she said in answer, eyes glowing on his as he smoothed a thumb across her ribs. “I see the song we will weave together.” Candleflame limned his face, turned the half-curve of his smile to glitter. “North, south, frost, flame… ice and fire.” They span and splashed back together: a whirl of silk and storm. “Will we make it so?” Her fingers unfurled on the plump muscle of his chest: bone-white as the branches of a weirwood tree against a smoke-dark sky. “Are stars fire? Does the sun circle? Can truth lie? Do wolves love?”

“You can doubt that stars are fire,” he said softly. “You can doubt that the sun circles.” His fingers swept feather-light the high bone of her cheek. “You can doubt that truth can lie.” He smiled then, and it filled her sweet as honey. “But you can never doubt that wolves can love, Ashara Dayne.”

_This will be a song someday_ , she thought it, and she _knew_ it – knew it sure as the warmth behind the smile on that face of winter so close to her own. There they span: north, south, frost, flame, ice, fire, spring summer autumn winter meadowsweets snowdrops – _all_. His smile was soft as summer storm: the same grey as his eyes. Her lips were laughing: aglitter with the amethysts that pinned her hair and made her eyes. _Let them sing of this eve whatever they will – we will write our **own** song_…

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB** : inspired by a much-loved quote from Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ (A2S2). 
> 
>  
> 
> _Doubt thou the stars are fire,_  
>  _Doubt that the sun doth move,_  
>  _Doubt truth to be a liar,_  
>  _But never doubt I love._
> 
>  
> 
> Two further chapters will weave their song; please feel free to leave feedback etc. ⭐


	2. Heart Tree

Their first kiss fell beneath half a thousand stars: white, grey, gold – flecks of flame in an endless sky. Half a thousand kisses, too – or was it just _one_ stretching endless as the ink-dark sky holding up all those flaming stars? Neither could say for certain. Warm day, but a chill evenfall; their breath misted together to burn away the sting of ice lingering knife-sharp in the black air. She shivered, pressed closer to him – _that_ was welcome to him as the coldness of the night.

He had shared kisses with a handful of maidens: wolfswood, winter town, shadows of the Vale, taverns on the winding road – but none like _this_. She tasted of spring, summer, meadowsweets, fireflame, _life_. Thick as honey, twice as sweet, his belly was drunk on it; his heart aglow with its warmth. Her violet eyes gazed up at him, flecks of flame glittering in their depths as the stars arched above them and he _saw_ it – he saw it _all_ , their life together: a bed of bearskins and black hair made to embers by candleflame, soft words spoken in the shadow of a heart tree, swollen belly, starburst kisses, children with laughing purple eyes and solemn northern frowns, grey hair and toothless mouths and clasped hands bone-white eternal as the white-fingered weirwood tree… He saw it _all_.

“What is it?” she asked, brows flickering to read his frown.

He kissed her again: honey-sweet, he _melted_.

“Ned,” she said, smiling against his lips. “They say in the south that Starks are made of ice and snow, hard frost and frozen stone… but here, _now_ , I feel your heat.” Those violet eyes blinking solemnly tore at the crooks of his ribs; softly, she peered between bone to beating blood beneath. “Just as I feel your _heart_.” She took his fingers from her hair, wove them with her own, pressed them to her breast. “Do you feel mine?”

“I feel it,” he murmured, the smoke of his breath twisting snow-sharp with hers: white frost on black air. “And I see it, Ash… north, south, frost, flame – ice and fire.” He shivered, but he was not cold. “Our song, I _see_ it.” He felt her heartbeat steady against his palm, surging through him like fire. “Can we make it so?”

“Do wolves love?”

“Are stars fire?”

“Does the sun circle?”

“Can truth lie?”

Round and round, soft words bled with laughter bright and beautiful as those purple eyes glittering as the stars arched endless above them. Sudden as a storm, laughter stopped; red-warm mouths surged back together, fingers gripping at hair and cloak and skirts, lashes swept down on velvet cheeks as her sigh eked and echoed like wolfsong in their kiss. Breathless, bruise-lipped, they drew back; brows rested tight together, hands clutching, weaving, grasping beneath folds of cloak.

“You can doubt that stars are fire,” he said softly. “You can doubt that the sun circles.” Her eyes bright as the stars wine-deep drowning his; her varnished nails biting at the skin of his hand. “You can doubt that truth can lie.” She smiled then, and it filled him sweet as spring. “But you can never doubt that wolves can love, Ashara Dayne.” He tasted the sweetness of her smile as he kissed her. “Our song… we will make it so.”

“Do you promise, Ned Stark?” she asked, whisper-soft, fingers feather-light across the shadow of his close-cropped beard. “Beneath the stars, do you promise?”

“Beneath the stars… and before one,” he murmured, his heart an ache between the crooks of his ribs as she smiled again so sweetly. “I promise.”

🌟

Reckless, ignoble, wild, wilful, _wrong_ – the names they hurled at her: half a thousand of them, wisps of mist burned away by the chill of a morrow dawned more winter than spring. _That is how it should be_ , she thought it, and she _knew_ it – knew it sure as her heartbeat slow and steady beneath a gown of ivory silk, as his eyes storm-grey fixed on hers. _Let them sing whatever names and hurts they will – we will write our **own** song_…

The world was wedding-white and he was a wolf amongst its frost and feathered leaves: steel and leather and storm and sentinel – the dark smoke of the north that lingered in those grey eyes, in the lines of his face, the shadow of his close-cropped beard, the dark hair half-bound half-loose falling to his wide shoulders. _And me?_ She was a star amongst the silver-flame of the morrow: sand and sea and sunflower and pale stone – the flaming starlight of the south that burst in those violet eyes, traced the smooth lines of her heart-shaped face, the curves of her lips, the dark hair half-bound half-loose falling to her slender waist. _Together?_ North, south, frost, flame… _A song of ice and fire_.

Bound as one beneath the shadow of a heart tree – oath and vow and promise flitting feather-light the chill air around them: the echoes of their song, just begun.

🌟

Moon chased sun from sky, and the world was no longer wedding-white. It was fireflame: crimson, yellow, orange – limning a bed of bearskins in a tent of grey-and-white. Canvas arched overhead in place of night sky; but he held a star in his arms all the same. _The lady of the stars_ … Gone the gown of ivory silk, gone the amethyst hairpins, gone the powder and perfume and preened sleeves, rustling skirts: layer upon perfect layer that made men see her as a lady of the south. She was not that, not _here_.

Here, she was the taste of her kiss: spring, summer, meadowsweets, fireflame, _life_. She was the heat between her legs: a pulse of fire that cloaked him, pulled him deeper, drowned him as the red-gold leaves drifting the black pool at the godswood of home. She was soft-silk skin, opening up beneath the roughness of his palms, turning to prickles at his touch despite the red-warm glow of the tent. She was a sigh that ebbed into a song as he pressed against her, fingers notching the arrows of her ribs, eddying her up to meet his rhythm: drift, surge, pulse, _drown_ as the red-gold leaves beneath the weirwood tree of home. She was white teeth, fleeting as starlight, nipping at his shoulder as he kissed the curve of her throat and breathed her scent: honey-sweet, snow-sharp.

“Reckless, they call me,” she murmured, chin upturned skyward, her teeth feathering her lip as he stroked inside her. “Ignoble, wild, wilful… _wrong_.” A breathy moan that he tasted on his tongue. “ _They_ are wrong, Ned Stark – them not us.” Her eyes gathering fireflame to glitter as the stars without, fixed on his, pulling at him as her thighs wrapped his warm back and drew him closer. “This is _our_ song, not theirs.”

“Ours,” he whispered, fingers smoothing the silk of her hair back from her brow; she moaned, eyes tight shut to feel his smile linger honey-sweet. “I can hear it, love… echoes of it, just begun.”

* * *


End file.
